Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charge calculation apparatus, a charge calculation system, and a charge calculation method.
Description of the Related Art
Many electronic devices such as personal computers and a game machines use an AC adaptor, which inputs an alternating-current (AC) power from a commercial power supply and outputs electric power matching the device, for the purpose of the operation of the device and the charge of the battery. Although the electronic device is usually operated by a direct current (DC), the voltage and current requirements are different in each device. Thus, the AC adaptor that outputs electric power matching particular devices is also different for each device. Accordingly, even if AC adaptors have similar shapes, they are not necessarily compatible with each other, and so there is an issue that the number of AC adaptors increases with increasing numbers of devices.
In order to solve the above issue, there has been proposed a power bus system in which a power supply block supplying electric power to devices such as a battery and an AC adaptor and a power consumption block receiving electric power from the power supply block are connected to a common DC bus line (for example, Patent Literatures 1 and 2). In this power bus system, a DC current flows through a bus line. Further, in the power bus system, each block itself is described as an object, and the objects of the respective blocks mutually transmit and receive information (state data) through a bus line. The object of each block generates the information (state data) based on a request from the object of another block and transmits the information as reply data. The object of the block having received the reply data can control electric power supply and consumption based on the contents of the received reply data.
The above power bus system is operated basically independently from an existing grid. Even if there is no existing grid, the power bus system can generate electric power and control power transmission and distribution. When the power bus system is installed at every home at most, the concepts of electric power charge and charging for the amount of used electric power are not required. Even when the existing grid is connected as an input of electric power of the power bus system, an existing watt-hour meter, a smart meter, and the like are provided at the entrance of each home and office. Therefore, in the power bus system, it is unnecessary to consider charging.
However, when the power bus systems installed at each home are connected to each other to be networked, even if the power bus system is operated independently from the existing grid, it is easily considered that the concept of charging for electric power is required. However, the charging system is sort of local, and the charging information can be regarded as a part of information related to power transmission and distribution, such as power specification information (in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-123051, for example).
Meanwhile, in the future, it is considered that an electric vehicle will be widely used out of consideration for the environment. However, with the spread of electric vehicles, the present inventors recognized that taxing electric power consumed in electric vehicles, as with the existing gasoline tax, may become a reality.
Namely, in current vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, fuel such as gasoline is directly taxed, and the tax is used as funding sources for transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvements. In this same vein, the taxing of electricity for electrical vehicle use may be employed to fund future road-related costs. Thus, it might become a reality to impose a separate tax on electric power for charging electric vehicles separate from a tax imposed on other electric power consumption. This is realized by using the currently proposed smart grid. When an ID of an object which uses electric power is determined to represent an electric vehicle, the electricity charge of the used electric power may be a charge including a tax and other electric power charge (corresponding to the vehicle fuel).